June 11 = 11 months!

::bahasa [language] barriers and on overcoming, or trying: “I wait you here,” a colleague said to me before she left earlier today to go on a Local Marketing mapping excursion.  “I wish we can talk more but I cannot speak English.”  Hearing that broke my heart to think of the barriers I have constructed in my brain and my heart throughout this year foolishly as a way to protect myself from pain experienced from cultural-understanding-fiascos, thinking that they could not understand me and that even though I was learning vocabulary words, somehow my heart hardened to the point where I did not care to put in the effort to actually understand them beyond what words can express.  “Negiri ini Indonesia, jadi harus belajar Bahasa Indonesia,” I processed in my brain as I spoke. “This country is Indonesia, so I need to learn the language.”  Terus [so], I'll have to work even harder on my language learning as I'll be teaching English in an international curriculum school in a month so that in this relational culture, I can build up relationships with people and love them how One loved me, and made Himself vulnerable with no protection and became obedient to death, even death on a cross. Here are some thoughts on new vocabulary words learned throughout the course of this week:

::tanaman [plant] Yesterday morning, I found on my desk a plant in a plastic bag.  I found out that it was from another colleague who transferred our department from General Admin earlier year.  Before going to teach my last class, I flew to the lobby where she was sitting and threw my arms around her neck.  I think she must have thought that I was crazy, but I’ve been so used to taking care of plants from my mother throughout my college years and I’ve been wanting one so badly this year - and finally a plant! I’m sure I sounded hilarious as I fumbled for words in Bahasa Indonesia to explain that I haven’t had time to search for a plant in the past eleven months here and how grateful I was that she gave one to me.  I didn’t even know the word for plant, so I had to turn to her computer and pull up Google translate because I was trying to say everything I was feeling.  By the way, the word is tanaman.  Definitely an example of God's care through His provision!

::pelajar-pelajar kita – our students; or, on graciousness and generosity 

It took a while to get to the smiling faces that you see all together in the picture.

“First time I did not like about your lesson, I feel boring and uncomfortable, you make my class really serious, so I feel hard.  I know it is become to hard because I not understand about English.  I start from zero and I don’t know anything about it and more hard because you teach me using English and can’t speak with Indonesian language.  It is a big problem for me.  I don’t know what you are talking and what I must to say with English.  But it is a process.”

My student Asep (pictured far right) shared the words above honestly with me in a letter he gave me recently for his self-initiated +/- 200 word essays for me everyday.  Though the grammar isn't perfect, it perfectly describes the story of my life for the past two months spent navigating the differences between Southeast Asian and Western classroom culture and also finding my way as a teacher with no formal educational experience.  I'm embarrassed to admit that a lot of ugliness surfaced in my heart during that time. 

One thing I’ve been learning this year about Indonesian culture (and with over 300 local languages and dialects and just as many people groups, what does that even mean?!) is saving face.  It is considered mature to mask one's anger or other negative emotions with a smile.  It is also considered mature to save someone else from embarrassment by not directly pointing out another's mistake(s).  I struggled with the former, because I am really transparent with my emotions – or sometimes they just leak out of my face when I don’t want them to! So I felt stabbed in the back when people would smile at me even though they were angry or frustrated with me because of something they did not like.  Rather than trying to sort out the cultural differences, it was easy to construct barriers in my heart and keep people out rather than taking the risk of getting hurt after letting them in.  I am sure I offended my students with the other part of saving face because it was also easy for me to point my accusing finger at my students for not understanding me even though I was the one talking too fast, and also for not telling me directly about their concerns or questions or frustrations.  Oh the difficulties that arose from due to us looking at the classroom through different cultural lenses.  And I also had a hard time owning up to my pride.

I mention all of that because I was amazed to see my students' faces drop as I shared with them the news that my contract would be finishing and that I would move on to teach at another school.  They have seen me at my worst, and yet they expressed outwardly through their body language that they would miss me and my roommates.  The girls, our (Sarah, Irene, me) students, invited us out to lunch last week and then showered us in gifts afterward.  I’m humbled to think that these people, who are moving overseas because they cannot find work in Indonesia that pays a high enough salary to support themselves and their loved ones, could give us so much through their generosity and their graciousness to cover over mistakes.  Even though my students and I share different beliefs, they have challenged me to think about Paul's words from Ephesians: "Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love." (Ephesians 4:2) Today my students gave me a frame of the picture above, and other pictures we took together. Asep was right - it was definitely a process, and one that I'm thankful for. 

::Mami Yuli: I wanted to write about her earlier in the year, and easily hammered out two 8 ½ x 11 pages on her (still the default US page size instead of A4…) one day after she had made me a cup of coffee and fed me in her usual motherly way with some wonderful-tasting cake.  I knew that people called her by the name “Mami” and at first, my roommates and I thought it was because she was the mother of Yuli, one of Ruth’s colleagues in Accounting.  I later found out that it wasn’t true, and that she had acquired the name based on her character and by being a mother to everyone in the company, older and young alike.  

Mami Yuli has been yet another reminder that God shows his care for us by providing for our needs.  Some of my most precious moments at work were spent trying to understand each other linguistically when really we understood each other from our hearts perfectly.   I’ve learned a lot of Bahasa Indonesia from our conversations, which has helped me in building up relationships with colleagues from our Local Marketing department – from simple things like kadang-kadang [sometimes] to muntah [vomit].  The latter was learned when I was helping myself to some water from the dispenser, and she said that if I drank it, I would muntah and then she proceeded to boil some water for me.   There were many mornings when she’d plug in the water boiler for me to make the 1000 rp pakets of ABC coffee I’d buy from the kantin, or even make me coffee herself.   

Her presence has meant a lot to me in this year away from my family, especially with being away from my mother during a time when she has been unwell and physically weak.  This morning when I gave her some tokens of appreciation which paled in comparison to everything she has given to me throughout this year, she got tears in her eyes and said in Bahasa Indonesia, “It’s like you’re my own child and I’m sad to think that you’re leaving…"I’d have to say that Mami Yuli is one of the most generous people I have met since coming here to Indonesia, and I have been really humbled by her example.  I am challenged by her to open my heart and to give freely and sincerely.

::suka duka [bittersweet]: Immediately after the plant episode yesterday, all I could think of was “bittersweet.”  It’s sad to leave people in a workplace that I never knew existed a year ago.  I asked my colleague Christine if she knew the Bahasa Indonesia equivalent for “bittersweet.”  She said that there was no direct translation as I explained the meaning of the word.  Discouragement!  I turned to my dictionary app and found that there were actually two phrases for my thoughts – one for food, and the other for experience.  The latter is suka duka.  Suka carries the feeling of “to like” and duka has the feeling of a sense of having lost something, Christine explained.  I like it because it rhymes – but it is a hard feeling to process, or try.

At eleven months, I never thought that I’d feel the way I’d feel about some of my team members who have become like family leaving Indonesia.  I feel like I’ve been preparing to get my heart ripped out over the past few weeks.  At the same time, I’m so thankful for the friends who have become like brothers and sisters to me here.  When we meet, I’ve often felt so challenged and sharpened, deposited into, and accepted for who I am just as they know that Jesus has completely loved accepted them.  I’m also looking forward to building up relationships with people who will become like my new family throughout the next year when they arrive in less than a week.